AMD Phenom X4 960T retail launch cancelled

AMD has canceled the introduction of the Phenom II X4 960T CPU. But not completely -- it will still be available to OEMs, it just will not be for sale on its own in online or offline hardware stores.

This CPU was, by all accounts, a 'Thuban' 6-core desktop CPU such our recently reviewed Phenom II X6 1090T but with two cores disabled. The most likely reason behind this change-up was either that AMD was getting second thoughts, seeing all the upcoming motherboards that have core unlocking features which would allow you to get six cores for a the price of a four core CPU, or that alternatively, as AMD said with the X3's being unlocked to X4's, that the company did not want have to deal with tons of folks unlocking cores on their CPUs and then being dissatisfied when their systems were not stable; or, even worse, when system builders would surreptitiously sell unlocked CPUs which possibly could not be stable systems, which gives AMD's reputation a tarnish.

We expect (and certainly hope) that there will eventually be X4 Thubans released, but they will not arrive until further down the road now.